Gene Notes

Monday, May 24, 2021

Summer vs. Genealogy

It's been at least a week since I searched for anything in the pile on my desk. The reason? Summer. Yes, I know it's May and summer has not officially started, but it's warm out and the pool is open.

Not that having the pool open per se keeps me from doing genealogy, but there is a certain amount of maintenance with pool chemicals, brushing the sides of the liner, vacuuming the bottom, scooping bugs and the occasional squirrel out. Wow, I kind of wish I had taken a picture of the squirrel in the pool before hubby fished it out. Then it took some extra pool shock to sanitize. It's a good thing the water was still cold then.

Since we took our first seasonal dip in the pool last Friday, by the time evening comes who wants to sit and transcribe death records, search for obits, births and marriages? To be honest, I do, but when I try to sit in my office and do stuff like that I get drowsy. Hmmm.

This photo is from opening day.

Thursday, March 4, 2021

COVID-19 GO AWAY! I WANT TO GO TO A FAMILY HISTORY CENTER!

I really need to go to an LDS Family History Center. We have one in my little 'Ville that is only about 1 mile away. Due to COVID-19, it's closed. That's really sad because I need to look at some German Lutheran Church records that are not on Ancestry.

Last weekend was RootsTech 2021. I was able to snag a couple of Research strategy sessions to help with two of my brick walls. The first was Nathaniel Davidson, my g-g-g grandfather who was born in Kentucky in 1797. I have two records that tell me his year (approximate) of birth. The first is the 1850 census, in which he states he is 53 years old. The second is his marriage record (1828) that says he is 31. Finding two records that old that agree is amazing. I've been looking at land records and wills and probates in Howard County, Missouri where Nathaniel lived probably until 1833-ish. That's when he sold off his property there and moved to Lafayette County, Missouri with his wife, Ann Estes. She was from Lafayette County. In 1850, they are living near her mother. Nathaniel died intestate. He had one daughter who was a minor, so she is mentioned in probate records. He had three other daughters, Mary, Eliza and Susan (my ancestor), and a son, John.

In 1830, in Howard County, Missouri, Nathaniel has an older couple living with them. A male between the ages of 70-79 and a woman between 60-69. I think those could be his father and mother. We think his father was still alive in 1833, due to a family letter. So I am no really any further ahead. Missouri records are bad enough, the time period is awful and I can't find enough information in local newspapers.

The other family is on my mom's side, the Kleesaat's. Or maybe Kleesaat, Klesat, Clesotte, Clesot, Glissant and a new one - Klewsaat. I was able to find some stuff on ancestry relating to my ancestor Christian Heinrich Ludwig Kleesaat's sister, Catarina Johanna Friederike Kleesaat. She was born in 1816 - two years younger than Christian. She married a first cousin, Jurgen Friederich Carl Klewsaat. They had 9, maybe 10 children. I think somewhere along the line when they were flipping her name around in the church records it ended up being Friederike Johanna Catarina. Then I found Jurgen and Friederika Johanna Christina. Jurgen died in 1867 and in 1867, Friederika appears with a couple of their children in the Mecklenburg-Schwerin census. But I really need to get into the Family History Center to look at the records in the surrounding towns to see if I can find a marriage record and baptismal records for my direct line. They have the records. This is what I get, and I have to access at a Family History Center.

I'm waiting.

Monday, February 8, 2021

On Getting More Information Than You Think You Want to Know.

I'm working on one of my dad's sidelines, the Webb family. To be truthful, his grandmother was a Webb, and the great aunt of one of the people I'm currently fixated on.

It started with a to do list item of finding an obituary for Alva C. Null, Sr. He died in Missouri in 1965, and I went looking for an obituary on him. Found a very nice one that gave the married name of his only daughter, Dixie Lee Dalton, who at the time of his death was living in Amarillo, Texas. No husband's name. Hmm.

Back to Ancestry, and searching for Dixie Lee Null, I find a marriage announcement for her, but not to a Dalton. Instead to William Anderson. I had to look twice because in 1940, when this even took place, Dixie was 15. The article was in an Odessa, Lafayette county, Missouri newspaper. Dixie lived in Clinton, Henry County, Missouri. So it looks like an elopement, but the notice of her marriage license was in the Clinton newspaper. Went looking again and found a marriage license and certificate in Jackson county, Missouri in 1943, under the name of Dixie Lee Anderson to Lloyd George Baugh. Okay, so now it looks like she was married three times - let's not forget Mr. Dalton.

Now I was on a roll. I searched for a marriage for Dixie Baugh to someone named Dalton. Found in the Kansas City Times, a marriage license issued in Wyandotte county, Kansas. It's bad enough I'm searching three Missouri counties, now a Kansas county. No marriage record, but she did indeed marry Clifford W. Dalton, sometime probably in 1945 since the license was issued July 10, maybe in Kansas. Here she is in 1945 at age 20 (paper says 22) on her third husband.

I found various articles about Dixie and Clifford for a few years, and then found his obituary in 1976 in Springfield, Greene county, Missouri. Then nothing.

Dixie was born in 1925. I figured somewhere along the line she either married again or passed. Take a guess?

I found husband number 4 in her obituary. Finding her obituary required me to search the funeral homes in the area for someone with a first name of Dixie. I found her in the online obituaries of Gorman-Scharpf Funeral Homes in Springfield. Indeed, she had married again, this time to Rev. Hugho Lewis, 22 years her junior. I don't have a marriage date for her and Hugho, but they were married in 1986 in time to host a 50th wedding anniversary for family - possibly his family since the names are not familiar.

After finding all this information, I thought it was time to look for divorce notices. While I never located in the newspapers a "divorce granted notice," I did find her filing for two divorces, the first and second husbands. And then a newspaper article about husband number two considering suicide, writing a note, taking a cab to the Kaw River, and then reconsidering.

As I enter all this information into my database, I think of how hard I've worked for it, and yet, how easy it was to find all this information. Years ago, I would have had to write to the newspaper, the county, the state to find what I wanted. Instead, with my internet connection and some subscriptions to online databases I was able to find all this out in a matter of days.

And in all my years of research, I've never seen anyone marry her husbands in alphabetical order!